Thank You For Subscribing to the Newsletter for the We Don’t Care About Freddie’s Boners Foundation

There are, as of this writing, one hundred and twenty eight published comments on the blog post in which we announced the creation of the We Don’t Care About Freddie’s Boners Foundation, a noble and charitable institution dedicated to not giving a flying fuck about what Freddie thinks on the following topics:

Whether Amanda Hess and I would be good dates. (No, seriously, he wrote an extended meditation on whether he’d enjoy himself on a date with either one of us.)

Whether I make too many terrible seriousness-killing jokes, which of course makes me stupid and not really feminist, and of course also makes it harder for me to be “called out” by Freddie, which of course is a problem.

Whether I am therefore SUUUUUCH A BIIIIIIIITCH for obstructing his condescending lectures, life goal of being a “true feminist” who does not listen to women on the topic of feminism or consider women probably the best sources for learning about women’s oppression, and/or [BONERS.]

This is (she said, unresearchily) the highest number of comments we have ever gotten on a single post, with the exception of “13 Ways of Looking About Liz Lemon,” which was linked to by the Awl, the Atlantic Wire, and Newsweek (and lots of other places around the feminist and political blogosphere: I don’t mean to leave anyone out, I just became unable to keep up with the trackbacks at a certain point. The examples listed here are notable because they come from outside of even a generously defined “feminist blogosphere,” and brought us some pretty high traffic, and traffic from people who don’t often read Tiger Beatdown). And those comments came in over the course of several weeks. Meaning that this is certainly the highest volume of comments we have ever gotten overnight, without being linked to by several other high-traffic websites (that I know of: I am just waking up, and haven’t looked at my Google reader yet, and am not seeing trackbacks).

Here’s some more information about that high comment volume for you: There are, currently, exactly three comments being held in moderation because I consider them to be over the line. They are on the topic of:

How I am CENSORING Freddie, with CENSORSHIP!

Why I am really being SO MEAN to Freddie. He’s trying! Surely a lady whom Freddie insulted, twice, on her personal blog, and on the topic of her writing style, intellectual capacity, dating skills, and TOTAL IRRATIONALITY LIKE WHY IS SHE SO OFFENDED ALL OF A SUDDEN, is required to give Freddie the benefit of the doubt and be nice to him! How will I ever advance the cause of feminism if I don’t treat Freddie nicely after he personally fucking insulted me more than once and did not listen to my explicit request that he shut the fuck up and go away? And honestly, why did I get so upset in the first place? Freddie’s raising important questions about feminism, and — AND I QUOTE — “he’s really (really) done it in an inoffensive way. You’ve gotten really defensive.”

How I am deeply, sexually obsessed with Freddie’s [BONER] and probably want it in me so bad right now.

No, seriously. The text of that last one is, in part, “Sady seems obsessed with Freddie’s penis. She’s probably fantasizing about it right now.”

Each of these three comments is by a person with a male screen name and/or a person who identifies explicitly as a “white straight cis dude” in his comment. I just thought you ought to know.

Stay tuned for updates, when we reach the 24-hour mark on our pledge drive, and you get to see how other people feel about Freddie’s Boners! In the meantime, of course, here is a button which one can press to show support for the We Don’t Care About Freddie’s Boners Foundations and its very exciting “dollar-a-joke” program. How many jokes do YOU want to oppress Freddie’s boners?

This was written by Sady. Posted on Saturday, April 10, 2010, at 2:54 pm. Filed under Uncategorized. Tagged [BONERS.]. Bookmark the permalink. Follow comments here with the RSS feed. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

55 Comments

Abbey wrote:

We Don’t Care About Freddie’s Boners Foundation is my new favourite charitable cause. I look forward to seeing their future works.

@Lee: Mostly pay rent, buy reasonably priced food to cook for myself, keep the ol’ Internet connection running, remain able to reserve time to write and to run the site, maybe buy C.L. a drink or two when she’s down. You know, junk people do with money when they get paid to do their work.

Just wanted you to know that I think you are ultra-fab and I fully support the We Don’t Care About Freddie’s Boners Foundation. I would donate, to make this point in a fiscal way! But I currently have $5.33 in my wallet and even less in the bank, so.

On my radio show last night, I highly recommended anyone needing to be cheered up, to visit Tiger Beatdown because honestly, who doesn’t love to see a beautiful sassy group of ladies (and some dudes) put the ol’ Beatdown on some freaking moron??????!!!!!!!!! And you are the most beautiful and sassy of all, Miss Sady FUCKING Doyle !!!!! I love you!!! I’ve been getting all Mama Cat up on the internet these last however many hours — thank you for everything you do for us and I hope you make a million dollars from this.
Love ya,
Soggy Smog

Would love love love to donate $$ to this very charitable cause (you deserve many beer) but I must add to the pleas of poverty. At least ’til the 19th of April. Then I too shall oppress Freddie’s [BONERS].

As the author of one of the above-mentioned comments held in moderation (hint: not the one about [BONERS] or censorship), I’d like to clarify my point. Freddie, on closer examination (and in light of a bunch of his comments made since I originally submitted mine), turns out to be a pretentious douche who is definitely wrong about the role of humor in serious discourse (and about the quality of this blog, both as humor and as serious discourse). But I would have loved to see the Tiger Beatdown response take the high road. I know you’re smart enough about all this to beat him at his own game; why reduce it to boner jokes?

In any case, my larger point, which I think was lost in my trying to stand up for the wrong kind of male feminist, was this: what role is there for men in feminism? I’m not trying to wear the label to get Internet-laid or anything, but I think it’s an interesting question. Can a guy be right and a woman wrong about some point of feminist theory?

Or, a more open-ended question: ladies, what would you want from a male ally? Should we just butt out and leave you to swap ideas on your own, or is there a real way for men to make a difference?

Hume, you may not understand what is going on here, but let me break it down for you: women are laughing at boners. Normally, we are expected to accomodate and/or worship them, so I know this is kind of a new thing and hard to adjust to.

There have been some guest post by male feminists this week. Read them. They are examples of successful male feminism.

Sorry, we are not going to devote our time in these comments to answer your questions, though you seem to think you are owed our time, because we are making boner jokes.

Though another Sady post about men in feminism would be fun, and I’d encourage such a post (in a non-demanding way). I have also previously voiced my support for a Sady post about Dr. Who (in a non-demanding way). But oddly enough, I do not feel I’m entitled to a Dr. Who post, nor a male feminist post, because this is not my blog. It’s not your damn blog either Hume.

Wait, it’s a joke a dollar? Damn my need to pay the mortgage and buy food, because I think my donation covered maybe half of an excellent post full of boner jokes.

@Hume: Because I am feeling warm and fuzzy, knowing that I did my part to ensure that Sady will never “take the high road” (because the high road is not nearly so funny), I will helpfully direct you to http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/ where you may have many of your questions re: being a good ally answered. Enjoy.

Sady Fucking Doyle, whenever you need a few bucks to keep the gears turning, you just say so. The donations will be modest but they will be consistent.

Oh, but I will require all the jokes I have paid for to be made WHILE TAKING THE LOW ROAD, preferably while running other fuckers right off said road and leaving a trail of tire-piercing nails and burned rubber tracks in your wake.

i know that i was inspired to comment (and donate) in solidarity with one of my all time idols! you obviously handled it (understatement! lol) but i still felt slightly personally jilted to hear such a douche dis my fav writer. usually i just read but yes. i was well pleased i had monies in my paypal for you. i know you played around with the idea of tshirts, seriously if you have the time you could make some money i think, judging by the huge amount of fans you have amassed! i want you to be comfortable so that i get my dose of sanity and enjoyment (aka new posts) as often as possible. also you should write a book! and! make a movie!
but mainly tshirts, i bet you could come up with all manner of snappy sayings and such. i say enlist readers to help. i could manage the australian branch of the tiger beatdown franchise for you?

But I would have loved to see the Tiger Beatdown response take the high road. I know you’re smart enough about all this to beat him at his own game; why reduce it to boner jokes?

Some ideas, and some individuals, do not, in fact, deserve “high road” or otherwise serious engagement. Sometimes, engaging seriously only plays into a troll’s derailing game; sometimes ribald mockery is the only appropriate and reasonable response.

@Hume, though you probably thought your comment in this thread was oh-so-reasonable, you’re still using quite a few Derailing for Dummies tips.

If You Won’t Educate Me How Can I Learn
If You Cared About These Matters You’d Be Willing To Educate Me
You’re Being Hostile
You Are Damaging Your Cause By Being Angry

Most notably the first one. It is not Sady’s job, nor is it that of female commenters in this post, to tell you how to be a good ally. You’re even derailing in a more literal sense by deciding that the questions you have are SO IMPORTANT that we shouldn’t even talk about the post at hand, but instead discuss these things which interest you. If you truly think it’s our responsibility to collectively, as a uniform group, let you know what we want from you, that allows you to say “well it’s all those mean feminist’s fault that I’m a shitty ally right now because they never TOLD ME HOW TO DO IT RIGHT. *SOB*”

@ Hume – Stop impersonating the Buddha. We make [BONERS] jokes because they are funny.
Also, get your head out of your arse. The world seems a lot less complicated that way.

@ Sady – Methinks Hume is another Freddie. How about setting up a fund for – I Don’t Care About What You Should Do To Become A Feminist Ally, Just Let Me Make Boners Jokes And Oh Shut The Fuck Up Foundation?

“But I would have loved to see the Tiger Beatdown response take the high road. I know you’re smart enough about all this to beat him at his own game; why reduce it to boner jokes?”

But taking the high road wouldn’t be beating him at his own game! Beating him at his own game would mean choking down a textbook’s worth of logical fallacies and male entitlement and then puking it up all over the comment box. It’s not really a very fun game, especially if you don’t like puking :C

In other words: there is no point in trying to engage in conversation with someone who will only hear ‘BLAH BLAH BLAH I’M JUST A SILLY LADY WITH A SILLY LADYBRAIN BETTER GET BACK TO FIXIN’ A SAMMICH BLAH BLAH BLAH HURTING YOUR FEELINGS IS THE ENTIRE POINT OF MY BLOG BLAH BLAH BLAH’ even if you’re reciting Hamlet’s soliloquy to him. So, instead, the smart writer plays to the audience, in this case making us laugh with lots of [BONERS] and letting us show our appreciation in a monetary fashion.

Also, step one in being a male feminist: not asking women to tell you how to be a male feminist, but instead having the motivation to go out and find out for yourself on this magical internet thing we have here, without taking up anyone’s time in a thread that is very distinctly Not About You or Your Problems.

As an older feminist lefty broad these comment threads warm the fucking hell out of my heart. Because BLAH BLAH BLAH UR RIGHTZ UR ASKIN 4 THEM RONG BLAH BLAH BLAH is a pain in the ass to read/hear over and over for fucking decades and [BONERS] covers it just as well and at least it makes me laugh.

I have to say, I am not yet exactly a “minion” of yours or even exactly a fan. But to paraphrase one of Freddie’s boner friends, in all this, you come out looking a lot better. And funnier. And not stupid.

And this fiasco gives me grist for the mill of “how not to act as a privileged person in spaces not about you” post that I really needed to get around to writing.

It’s worth adding that Freddie, for all his whining about censorship, has turned off commenting to the offending posts. Ooops, too much for the big guy, I guess. I HAVE BEEN CENSORED. I DEMAND RESTITUTION! FREEDOM! ETC!

Oh my god I checked out Freddie’s Link (some of us can’t help ourselves) and he’s MORE douche-y than it seems on his comments on Tiger Beatdown. DO NOT GO THERE. You will be drowned in his BONER JUICE. Learn from me people.

Hume: [url=http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/01/nouning-considered-harmful.html]Check out this Shakesville post[/url]. The point isn’t whether or not people will call you a feminist: It’s whether, regardless of gender, you’re acting in a feminist manner. Its amazing how much good you can get done when you stop worrying about whether people care.

I am too broke to donate. Which sucks, because just last night I was thinking to myself, “I would like to buy this Sady Doyle person a drink for being FUCKING AWESOME,” and I cannot. But if this possible employment thing I am looking into works out, then I will be able to!

But in the meantime, okay, I play a lot of World of Warcraft, and on Friday my guild runs a particular raid, in which one of the bosses sometimes reanimates her little friends as skeletons which we, being so fucking mature, refer to as “boners”. So when I am killing boners in my video game I will be thinking of Tiger Beatdown!

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